Present improvements in container fabricating and filling equipment and the increased production rates required for the more economical presentation of products make improvements in article handling equipment highly desirable. Previously used chain, roller and gravity handling systems may now be considered too inefficient, noisy, cumbersome or mechanicaly unreliable for full satisfaction of present day requirements. In order to provide improved production results, it is acknowledged that others have previously used pressurized air for moving, sorting, elevating, turning and dispensing separable articles of the type to be handled by the apparatus described herein. In general it is believed that the design, operation and results obtained from use of the applicant's new equipment provides a further improved result.
The present invention is directed to the provision of apparatus embodiments that are specifically useful for moving separate articles to and from a zone of bulk storage with the delivery therefrom being on a single piece basis and with the separate single pieces being oriented in a desired side by side relationship. The present embodiments, however, are exemplary of a series or family of inventions set forth in separate applications with each application being directed to a different or varied type of article handling equipment that is characterized by the treatment or movement imparted to the separate articles by such equipment. The present invention embodiments move multiple articles from bulk storage to one or more single file series arrangements and might be generally identified as multiple single filer apparatus. Other inventions are directed to horizontal conveying apparatus with the articles in horizontal or vertical orientation; to article turning apparatus; to table accumulators, etc.
For all such air handling equipment inventions, other than the table accumulators and the bulk storage features of the present invention, an overriding concept or mode of operation is common. Such concept is inherent in the following analyses: when the individual articles are to be moved in other than a bulk arrangement, the air being impinged thereagainst will be of controlled flow, pressure and direction to hold the articles in an individually balanced straight position insofar as possible and with the air discharge being configured to a maximum extent to keep the individual articles in a single piece arrangement whereby interference between adjacent articles and the bulking of weight of multiple articles is avoided. To attain such beneficial and desirable results, novel arrangements and dispositions for pressurized jets and vents are cooperatively utilized.